Composite amplifiers are amplifiers that contain several, individually driven, constituent amplifiers connected to each other and the output via special output networks. (Constituent amplifier means a single transistor, or a parallel combination of transistors, together with supporting circuitry.) This gives composite amplifiers better efficiency than single-transistor amplifiers (or amplifiers with several transistors driven collectively). Doherty and Chireix amplifiers are widely known examples of composite amplifiers. They are described in W. H. Doherty, “A new high efficiency power amplifier for modulated waves,” Proc. IRE, vol. 24, no. 9, pp. 1163-1182, September 1936 and in H. Chireix, “High power outphasing modulation”, Proc. IRE, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 1370-1392, November 1935. The Doherty amplifier can be generalized to more than two constituent amplifiers, as described in e.g. F. H. Raab, “Efficiency of Doherty RF Power Amplifier Systems”, IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, vol. BC-33, no. 3, September 1987.
Several new high-order (3 or more constituent amplifiers) composite amplifiers with better efficiency have been disclosed recently in for example WO 2004/023647, WO 2004/057755, WO 2005/031966 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,012,200.
A Doherty amplifier consists of a main amplifier and an auxiliary (peak) amplifier connected to each other and the output via an output network. A prototypical output network that gives Doherty operation consists of a main amplifier connected to a common load via a quarter-wavelength line having characteristic impedance equal to the main amplifier's optimal load resistance. The auxiliary amplifier is connected directly to the common load. The common load resistance is equal to the parallel connection of the optimal loads of the main and auxiliary amplifiers.
Doherty Radio Frequency (RF) Power Amplifiers (PAs) are very efficient for amplitude-modulated signals, since they have lower average sum of RF output currents from the transistors than conventional amplifiers. Reduced RF current translates into reduced DC (supply) current since class B (half-wave rectified sine transistor current waveform) or similar operation of the constituent transistors is used.
An important property of the Doherty output network is that it allows the auxiliary amplifier to influence the RF voltage at the main amplifier while affecting its own RF voltage, and the output voltage, much less (ideally zero). This means that the auxiliary amplifier's input drive can be off at output levels below a transition point without consequence to the output. The quarter wavelength line transforms the load into higher impedance at the main amplifier. This has two consequences: 1) the main amplifier's efficiency increases, 2) the main amplifier reaches saturation at a level well below its maximum output power (i.e. the transition point). At levels above the transition point, the auxiliary amplifier keeps the main amplifier voltage at a substantially constant level. This means that the nonlinearity due to the main amplifier's saturation can be kept low.
The main amplifier gives a substantially linear output RF current over the whole amplitude range, while the auxiliary amplifier gives a linearly rising RF current only above the transition point, i.e. a nonlinear output current. These two currents also have a phase difference of 90 degrees. By providing RF current, the auxiliary amplifier also contributes to the output power in the upper amplitude range.
A Chireix amplifier has a different output network than a Doherty amplifier, and is traditionally driven with equal amplitudes for both amplifiers. The term “outphasing”, which describes the key method in Chireix amplifiers, generally means the method of obtaining amplitude modulation by combining two phase-modulated constant-amplitude signals. The phases of these constant-amplitude signals are chosen so that the result from their vector-summation yields the desired amplitude.
Compensating reactances in the output network of the Chireix amplifier are used to extend the region of high efficiency to lower output power levels. An equivalent network can be built with shortened and lengthened transmission lines, whose sum should be 0.5 wavelengths.
High-order composite amplifiers (see for example WO 2004/023647, WO 2004/057755, WO 2005/031966) generally use combinations of Doherty-like drive signals (one or more amplifiers are driven only above some amplitude) and Chireix-like drive signals (two of the constituent amplifiers are driven with equal amplitudes in some amplitude range).
Direct IQ-modulation in a transmitter is the direct modulation of a complex baseband signal to a real, analog, signal at intermediate frequency (IF) or final RF. The real and imaginary parts of a complex baseband signal are commonly called (due to their mapping to the RF signal) In-phase (I) or Quadrature-phase (Q), hence the name IQ-modulation. Direct IQ-modulation has several advantages, chief of which are the high utilization of the available bandwidth of the Digital-to-Analog Converters (DACs), and that this bandwidth is split between two DACs. Both advantages lower the cost of the DAC system.
Direct IQ-modulators are analog complex-to-real multipliers, i.e. two four-quadrant analog multipliers coupled to a summing node. The multiplicands are two 90-degree offset Local Oscillator (LO) signals at the target frequency. The IQ-modulation process is prone to errors due to various imbalances and offsets in the LO signals, DC levels, analog circuitry and DAC outputs. These errors can vary nonlinearly with amplitude and also be frequency-dependent. For conventional amplifiers they are observable in the output signal. They are also correctable. This is discussed in the article “Digital Precompensation of Imperfections in Quadrature Modulators”, R. Marchesani, IEEE. Trans. on Communications, vol. 48, no. 4, April 2000, pp. 552-556.
Composite amplifiers are however preferred in many products for efficiency reasons as described above. The composite amplifiers consists of two or more coupled, individually driven, amplifiers. With one IQ-modulator for each amplifier the different errors from the IQ-modulators are mixed and can not easily be individually observed in the transmitter output. Therefore, with a single observation receiver there will be a residual error due to not being able to individually observe the individual IQ-modulators' errors.
A straightforward solution would be to instead observe the individual constituent amplifier inputs. This, however, means that two (in the case of Doherty or Chireix) or more observation receivers or a receiver with several switchable inputs must be used, which increases cost. In many situations, the transmitter output too must be observed anyway, for purposes of linearization, which then increases the number of observation receivers to at least three.